


Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground

by KateThorne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Femslash, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 21:25:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KateThorne/pseuds/KateThorne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College was never where Jo belonged. It was just something that she could one day point to when her mother complained about her never trying. Suffering through her freshman year, she meets another girl who doesn't quite fit the mold. Anna Milton is just too beautiful for her world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground

Joanna Beth Harvelle really hated college.

" _No dartboards in the dorm rooms_." Her RA had told her, chins wobbling, as she looked Jo over like a very troublesome toddler. " _You aren't supposed to have weapons on campus. No spray paint._ "

But Jo would be damned if she got attacked by a demon while she slept because she was acting like an obedient little schoolgirl. Hell, all the girls in the dorm were _lucky_ that she had scratched those demon traps into the floors. They should have been grateful, but since when have normal people ever been grateful?

Jo was the only thing standing between most of those girls and a demon possession and all she got were whispers and strange looks and people crushing into walls and each other to put as much space between them and her as humanly possible as they passed each other on the stairwell or in the narrow halls.

It was worse then high school, where she heard the whispered echoes of 'psycho Jo' wherever she went. At least there, they had whispered it reverently. At least there she could go home. In high school she could go back to her Mom's bar and not be a freak.

Here, all she had was a telephone, with a tired old woman on the other line saying things like, "Well, Joanna, you just aren't trying hard enough."

But she could really only stand in the corner of so many parties, alone, with a two or three foot radius of empty space between her any anyone around her, before she called it a day and went to sit in her dorm room with her Dad's hunting journal. He was the only friend she had now. And he was dead.

Jo was throwing her Dad's iron knife at the dartboard she wasn't supposed to have, ignoring the empty side of her dorm room.

The last girl, Alicia or Alyssa or something, had spent the entire two days that they shared a room chain smoking and arguing loudly with her long distance boyfriend over the phone.

Jo had gone though about five roommates in three weeks. They would come in all smiles and then, once they saw the knives and the symbols, would ask for a room transfer on the grounds of "incompatible personalities." That was fancy bureaucratic-dorm-administration speak for saying that Jo didn't do drugs, or steal, or have sex at all hours of the night, she was just freaking creepy.

Well, after going through so many roommates, Jo was starting to get the really bottom of the barrel types. Hell, even chain smoking, phone yelling, Alison had moved up from "creepy Jo Harvelle." Whatever, her loss.

"Is this 406?" asked a quiet voice from Jo's open doorway. The newcomer's eyes fell to The knife in Jo's hand and big hazel eyes got even rounder as she mumbled, "Oh."

Long, dark red hair fell like a curtain around a narrow, pale face. She just looked timidly between Jo's knife in her hand and Jo's eyes. Her shoulders were a little hunched and her voice was soft and hesitant, as if she thought about each word she said very carefully, but then had to recite them quickly lest she change her mind.

"I'm, um, I'm your new roommate, I guess. I'm Anna."

"Hey."

"So, um, what's your name?"

"Jo."

"Oh, um, alright." Said Anna before retreating behind a waterfall of red again. Her entire hunched posture was like an apology for the space she was occupying. If the girl wasn't so tall with such a striking mane of hair, she would probably vanish into the wall behind her.

Jo's cold tone wasn't helping the shy girl and Jo almost felt a stab of sympathy. Almost. But delicate little umm-ing and oh-ing Anna would get the hell away from psycho-Jo as soon as she found out about the jar of holy water under her bed and the .45 with silver bullets that she had tucked away in the back of her closet. Whatever, her loss.

"So," said the RA in a voice too chipper to be legal as she poked her head into their room, "How are we all settli—"

The second that Jo heard the voice, she smoothly slipped the knife up her sleeve and out of the RA's eyesight. The RA's eyes fell, instead, to the dartboard that she had told Jo to take down on numerous occasions. She knew that Jo didn't fuss around with darts.

"Joanna," she said in her best matronly scolding voice, despite the fact that the girl was only two years older than her, "We've discussed this. Do I need to confiscate another knife?"

"She was showing me how to play." Piped in timid umm-ing and oh-ing Anna. "I saw the dartboard in her closet and asked her to."

The RA stood in shocked silence for a few minutes before regaining her composure.

"No dartboards allowed." repeated the RA, her eyes still flitting suspiciously between the two.

"I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

The RA cast another accusing glance at the two of them before turning on her heel and walking out the door.

Jo's eyes went straight to Anna as the door shut behind her.

"You didn't have to do that." Said Jo, "I don't need you to stick up for me."

"Oh, Ok." Mumbled Anna, shrinking into herself again, the cool liar had turned into a delicate little flower, wilting under Jo's scrutiny. "Sorry."

"You don't… need to apologize." Said Jo, her bleeding heart getting the better of her. "You're a pretty great liar, actually."

"Really?" asked Anna hopefully.

"Sure." Said Jo, the desperate flicker in Anna's eye was too heartbreaking to not reward with a warm smile.

"So," said Jo, "I'm the freak with the knife collection. What's your story?"

"Um…" Anna gave an awkward giggle and started rustling around in the little box that she had carried up the stairs with her. Besides a nondescript duffle bag, it seemed to be the only possession that Anna owned.

Any other person would read Anna's discomfort and drop the subject. Jo wasn't any other person, though.

"Ummm…" Anna started again, "Ummmm… I hear voices. Uh, in my head"

Jo raised her eyebrows.

"Just kidding," said Anna quickly, "God, could you imagine? My last roommate was just constantly having sex with her boyfriend. I needed some space."

"What kind of voices are we talking here?" asked Jo, quietly. "Are we talking, 'Red rum' voices?"

Anna paused and looked back over her shoulder at Jo.

"Ummm…" she said, but she spoke more confidently as she saw that Jo was shrinking away or looking at her like she was crazy. Jo was raised by hunters. She knew the stuff of nightmares. Voices in the heard weren't about to scare her away. "I hear…uh… angels."

"Angels?"

"Sort of, Yeah."

"What do they say?"

"Nothing much." Said Anna, "They don't give me orders or anything. That's what…uh…" Anna hesitated as she seemed to realize exactly how much she was telling Jo, "That's what the doctors didn't understand."

"You've been to a shrink?"

"Um, yeah."

"Did they give you the pills?"

"Yeah."

"Do they know that the angels still talk to you?"

"They don't talk to me… It's almost like I overhear what they're saying." Anna picked nervously at a cuticle on her nail, "I…uh… don't mean to hear it, I just do."

"They don't tell you to hurt anyone?"

"Um, no."

"They don't tell you to hurt yourself?"

"No."

"Ok." Said Jo, turning back to throwing her knife at the dartboard while giving Anna some privacy to set up her small belongings. "I can live with that."

:::

Without Jo Harvelle really being able to pinpoint how or why, Anna Milton became her best friend. Perhaps it was the first weekend they spent in the dorm together.

With her other roommates, Jo had always felt like she needed to pretend to have someplace cool or interesting to go on a weekend night. It was too weird to sit in the dorm room while her roommate got ready for some party, some party that she pointedly didn't invite Jo to, and admit that she didn't have anywhere to be. Jo could tolerate being a freak. Jo couldn't stand being a freak and a pathetic loser.

Some nights she would wander around the college town. Most nights she would wind up in the library, tucked away in some dusty corner, pouring over books on the occult and her Dad's journal until, what she deemed, was an acceptably cool time to mosey on back into her dorm room.

But that first Friday night, Anna sat, perched like a fiery bird on her bed, curled into her self, with a book on her lap, peering out at Jo with watchful eyes.

"Are you going out tonight?" she had asked softly.

In college, it was the world's most loaded question. Within a handful of simple words it was asking, Are you having more fun than I am tonight? Are you going to invite me? Do you have more friends than I do? Do you have more sex than I do?

Anna already knew that Jo was a freak. Anna already knew that Jo didn't really have any friends. For the first time since stepping foot on campus, Jo didn't have to pretend to be someone she wasn't.

"No, not really."

"Really?" asked Anna, hopefully.

"Yeah."

"Oh, uh, OK." She said, the bright smile shining out from her delicate features, "Me neither, I guess."

"Cool."

"Yeah, um, cool."

So instead of pouring over occult books alone in the dusty library, she sat in her dorm room with Anna Milton. She showed Anna her knife collection, and Anna told her about the Angels.

Losers? Yeah, probably. Freaks? Definitely. But Anna Milton didn't treat Jo like she was some sort of mass murdering goth kid and Jo didn't treat Anna like a schizophrenic time bomb. In that dorm room, they were both normal. In that dorm room, they were surrounded by friends.

Jo stopped short in surprise as she saw Anna on her dorm bed one Wednesday. Jo had forgotten her notebook for a class and dashed to the room to get it. She had expected Anna to be out in her own classes all day, not watching TV on her laptop. Anna looked up guiltily.

"Uh, Hi."

"What's up, Anna?"

"Oh, um, not much."

"I thought you had class."

"I did… Um… I do"

"You're ditching class?"

"Um, yeah. I guess." She said, "It's, uh, my acting class. You know, the one I… uh… have to take. The gen ed, one, I guess."

"You don't like acting class?" asked Jo, "Why not? Sounds easy."

"Um, can't you guess?" Anna broke into a hesitant smile.

Anna Milton didn't laugh. She had a sense of humor, but if you weren't watching closely, you'd miss it. She would say dry, sarcastic comments in her usual manner; quietly, shyly and sandwiched between filler words. Then she'd smile softly, and for Anna, it was like a bark of laughter.

"You're skipping class?" Jo asked again, "You're skipping class, watching TV and I've been going to lectures all day like a chump?"

Anna smiled softly.

"Scoot over. Linguistics can bite me."

Another soft smile as Anna scooted. Jo climbed into her bed and sat next to her, the laptop taking equal space on Jo and Anna's respective thighs. Jo pulled out the mail she had grabbed on her way up.

"Letter from your Mom. Letter from your Dad. Postcard from both." Said Jo, sorting the mail, handing the majority of it right over to Anna who took it without lifting her eyes from the screen.

No one ever sent Jo anything, but she was expecting a letter from Ash. He owed her, after all, for talking up that bar skank and getting him laid that one time. The girl had been a 7 or 8, easily. Jo would have taken a swing for herself, but it was pretty clear that the girl didn't go that way.

"Ah ha!" Jo all but yelled, feeling the thick envelope from Nebraska.

"What is it?" Asked Anna, as surprised at Jo's mail as Jo was.

"A present. For you."

"Um, what?"

Jo opened the envelope with all the grace of a toddler on Christmas morning. Anna watched, a delicate smirk playing at her lips.

"Read it and weep." Said Jo, grinning as she handed Anna the fake ID.

"Oh, um, wow. Thanks?"

"I know a guy." Said Jo with a shrug, "he owed me. I swiped the picture from your actual driver's license. Trust me, that's the best fake ID in the country."

"I trust you."

"But…"

"Um, Jo, I don't really drink or anything."

"No, you cannot pull that straight-edge crap on me. You're skipping class! No, you and I are getting fucked up tonight."

"Oh, my," said Anna, more in reaction to Jo's language than anything else, "I guess we have to go get… fucked up… then." She said, the tiniest of smiles curing at her lips.

:::

"I'm drunk." declared Anna Milton, her arm looped around Jo Harvelle as the two made their way from the bar, back up to the dorm rooms.

"You're not drunk, you're tipsy. Big difference," said Jo, laughing at Anna nonetheless. Ever since Jo was ten, she could recognize drunk. Anna Milton wasn't drunk.

But she was having fun being as "wild" as the daughter of a church deacon could ever be expected to be. Jo decided to let her enjoy it.

Anna was wearing one of Jo's dresses. It was short on Jo, who was about four inches shorter than her friend. On Anna, the dress was practically obscene, displaying more long, creamy pale leg than should have been legal. The dipping back of the dress revealed even more impossibly beautiful skin, soft and delicate, the sea of milky flesh interrupted by small islands of moles, a striking contrast against the moon white.

Tiny islands that Jo wanted to trace with her fingertips. Jo wanted to watch the ocean of ivory dance with shivers as she ran her tongue down the ravine of her spine. She wanted to feel the gentle curve of her hips against her hand, wanted to taste the musky warmth between the long dancer worthy legs.

Anna was tipsy. Jo might have been a little drunk.

"No!" Anna protested with more fervor and animation than she would ever do were she completely sober, "No, I'm _fucked up._ " Anna said in a tone that seemed to settle the matter, while somehow being shamelessly proud of using the curse word.

Speaking of fucking… _No, damn it, keep it together, Harvelle_.

Jo loved Anna, a little bit, right at that moment.

Anna, just being Anna. For once she seemed completely comfortable in her skin. Completely at peace with her body and beauty. The only other time that Jo had seen Anna so visceral, was when Anna was asleep. Jo could practically chart the emotions that ran across Anna's face as she dreamt. Love, affection, comfort, home. That proved two things. 1. That Jo was spending a creepy amount of time watching her roommate sleep and 2. Anna loved those angels in her head.

Awake and on earth, Anna was out of her element. It was as simple as that. It was clear that she was odd, but Jo realized that there was something more behind it. Maybe it took someone completely aware and unsurprised by everything supernatural in this world, but Jo recognized Anna for what she was. Something, she couldn't put a name or a label to it, but something too beautiful for this world. Something too beautiful for their classmates, for Anna's old roommates, hell, even for Jo. Jo was human and vulgar. Anna was something else entirely. Something perfect. It scared the silly little humans who saw that she was different and feared her for it.

Their loss.

"Bed time!" Anna almostyelled as she threw herself onto her bed. She didn't aim well or get enough momentum to truly clear the risers, ending up with her head mashed into the pillow while her hips and legs hung off the side of the bed.

The already short dress was pulled up even shorter, showing the bottoms of Anna's underwear. The modest boyshort failing miserably at its job of being modest as the seams pulled around the curve of Anna's thighs. The cut ended just were the slope of Anna's butt began and Jo wanted to feel it beneath her hands. Jo swallowed the lump in her throat and forced her eyes upwards to Anna's back. Anna's elegantly slender back where the curves of her spine led a sinful trail right up to the curve of her neck that fluttered as she breathed.

Ok, Jo was drunk.

"You have to get ready for bed first." Said Jo, tearing her eyes from the work of art before her.

"No." said a muffled, childish voice from the pillow. "Sleep like this. Night-night."

"You'll wrinkle the dress."

It was clear that only social decency, seeing as Anna was borrowing Jo's clothes, spurred her into action.

"Can't reach zipper. Too hard." Said Anna, turning her head so that she was looking over her shoulder at Jo. The sight was almost too much.

Jo stepped forward and jerked the zipper down, then stepped away quickly before she could breathe in the undoubtedly intoxicating smell that was Anna, before her alcohol fueled fingers could finally express the will of their own.

Anna wiggled to of the dress and pulled her legs up onto her bed. Anna Milton did not own thongs or lacey under things. She had cotton. She had cotton briefs and boy shorts and they only came in white or nude.

And Jo Harvelle would take any Victoria Secret advertising executive to the mat saying that tanned supermodels in black silk and lace were half as sexy as Anna was, sitting on her bed in her in that moment.

It was almost a little funny that the skin colored underwear was actually dark against her alabaster thighs. The snow-white bra matched her complexion much better. Jo had to force herself to look away from the only superfluous detail on Anna's minimalist attire, the small pink bow between the cups of her bra.

Jo stepped forward to retrieve the dress and she realized that she must have been doing a really bad job of not staring. Was her depth perception off or was Anna's chest heaving a little more than was absolutely natural?

Fingers skimmed fingers as the silk fabric of the dress exchanged hands and Jo chanced a look up to Anna. Anna was staring with absolute concentration at Jo's mouth. Jo licked her lips and Anna emitted a barely audible sigh. Jo decided that this was all the invitation she was going to get and wasn't going to wait to be asked twice. She leaned forward and placed her lips against Anna's.

Against Anna's unresponsive mouth.

Jo pulled away, blushing and burning with shame. Of course, Anna, beautiful perfect and completely out of this world, wasn't gay. And even if she was, why would she be making out with psycho-Jo?

"Yikes, sorry." Said Jo, in a desperate attempt to recover the moment "Drunk lesbian on the loose."

"You're…um…gay?"

"Yeah." Said Jo with a strained grin, "Kind of obvious, isn't it?"

Jo made to pull back and give poor, tipsy Anna time to get dressed and fill out an emergency room transfer request slip. She idly wondered if "handsy dyke," was grounds for a new roommate or if she would have to fill out "incompatible personalities," just like everyone else. Jo Harvelle was a freak. It had just taken Anna a little longer to figure it out.

As Jo stepped back, Anna grabbed her by the back of the neck and pulled her lips back into the kiss. Anna was harsh and fast and sloppy and Jo vaguely wondered how often she had done this at all, let alone with another girl. As Anna's graceless, eager tongue traced her lips, Jo realized that she couldn't care less.

Jo dropped the dress to the floor because, well, fuck it. And pulled her hands into Anna's hair, running fingers along flawless shin as cupped her cheeks in her hands. Jo's tongue joined Anna's and she took control of the kiss. Anna seemed to be relieved to let her and Jo would be damned if Anna didn't melt right into her touch. Anna just surrendered into her hands, trusting everything that she had and that she was to her.

Anna pulled away from the kiss but Jo didn't even have time to feel worried or embarrassed as Anna scooted, making room for Jo on her bed. Jo climbed onto the bed with all the agility of a hunter. Anna's eyes widened as she saw Jo's practiced response to her invitation. Her pupils were large and lust blown, but her lip trembled in apprehension. Jo hesitated, lingering just inches from her lips.

"Are you sure you want this? We can go slower. We can just kiss. Whatever you want."

Anna bit her lip shyly.

"No," she whispered, "No, please. I want this…I've wanted this for…. I just don't know what to…"

Jo wanted to shout from the rooftops. She _wanted_ this. As in past tense. As in she had been looking at Jo all those times that Jo had been looking at her. Did her heart skip a beat when their thighs touched as they watched TV too? Did she think about her while she was in class, like Jo did?

Jo was a violent dark freak. Being excluded sucked, but a part of Jo realized that if she was a hunter, she would never belong to the exclusive club of normal. And Jo, in her heart of hearts, was a hunter. College was a detour. Something she could point to when her mother bitched about her never trying.

But Anna was better. Better than these people. Better than this college, than this dorm room, than Jo. Despite all logic, she wanted to be here. Out of everyone she had ever known, out of everywhere she had ever been, this girl wanted to be there, in that dorm room, with Jo.

"Thank God." Said Jo with a relieved chuckle, and her hands tangled in Anna's hair again and her lips went right back to Anna's, where they belonged. Jo kept kissing Anna, teaching her the rhythm, teasing her bottom lip between her teeth. Anna made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a moan and Jo's stomach practically flipped over with need. But Jo kept her hands and fingers in the PG realm of kissing. Anna was the virgin. Anna needed to set the pace.

After a few minutes, Anna's fingers cautiously laid across Jo's hips. Had every nerve, neuron and ounce of concentration not been focused exclusively on Anna's every move and sound, Jo might have missed it.

Clumsy, feather light fingers dipped between the waistband of Jo's jeans and underwear. Jo had been laying over Anna, her weight supported on her arms. Her elbows practically buckled as her entire body responded to a couple of fingernails tracing the top of her entrance.

Anna pulled from their kiss and watched Jo's reaction to her touches. Her fingers continued to skim across Jo's folds and Jo was practically bucking into Anna's delicate hand for more pressure.

"Show me." Anna murmured, "Show me what you like."

"Ok, just tell me when to stop." Said Jo, "Tell me when it's too…"

"Just touch me already." Said Anna, pulling her body up to meet Jo, hips first. Jo had been straddling Anna's narrow waist and Anna's hipbones hit Jo's sensitive button, causing her to bite a hungry growl in her throat.

Jo tried to be patient and tender, really, she did. But Anna, already half naked, biting her lip, with rosy pink pools of heat and lust in her cheeks was just too much. Jo was only human, after all.

Anna gasped as Jo unclasped her bra and freed her small, perfect breasts. Nipples, just as small and beautiful as rosebuds were already hard. Jo rewarded their perfection with tender kisses, swirling her tongue around each in turn before running her lips in a series of fevered kisses down Anna's chest and stomach.

Jo pulled what self-control she had left into action as she hesitated before the elastic waistband of Anna's boyshorts.

Though, Jo didn't seem to need it after all, as Anna's hips were practically pulsing off the bed, begging for attention. Jo pulled the cotton underwear off in an easy motion and went to work.

The second that tongue met clit, Anna seemed to have some sort of seizure and religious awakening at once. She shook and trembled beneath Jo's hands and mouth all the while panting, "Jesus Christ, God almighty, yes. Jo, yes please. Like that. Just like that. Don't stop, never stop."

Jo pulled her mouth away, looking at Anna over her sweat shined body.

"Watch me." Said Jo, as Anna's eyes had been closed in ecstasy as she writhed.

"Right, sorry." Murmured Anna, "I want to do this to you too. I want to make you to feel this good too."

A feral beast that resided in Jo's lower stomach did a flip of want as the debauched, lust blown eyes and bitten lips of the goddess before her formed those words.

"That's… hot." Said Jo, Anna smiled wickedly, "Also, it's fucking sexy to watch you watch me as I eat you out."

Anna's blue eyes went dark and she nodded as Jo lowered herself between her legs again. Anna melted as she came with a deliciously indulgent moan a few minutes after that.

Jo sat up, satisfied with a job well done as she wiped her mouth. Anna, naked and loose limbed after her orgasm sat up to meet her. She pulled Jo into a languid kiss, tracing her chin with long snowy fingertips then sliding down her neck to her tank top.

The tank top was removed without ceremony and forgotten as it soared across the room in the general direction of Jo's bed. Anna adjusted her weight so that she was straddling Jo now, guiding her backwards, so that Jo's head was at the foot of the bed.

Anna seemed to hesitate with her hand over the opening of Jo's pants, worrying her bottom lip. Wordlessly, Jo placed her hand over Anna's and guided her downwards. Anna's eyes went wide as she felt Jo's moisture, but it was more curiosity than anything else. Experimentally, Anna skimmed a thumb over Jo's clit, playing with the pressure of it.

"I want you to come." Said Anna, for once her voice lacked hesitation and question. For once, Anna was in complete control. "I want you to come for me."

After a few minutes of clumsy, but earnest, touches Jo did just that.

The rest of the night was lost to giggles and tender touches. Whispered stories and long, comfortable silence. The girl who heard voices and the girl with the book on witchcraft were holed up in their dorm room. They had no place in the exclusive club of normal, so they made their own.

Jo couldn't fathom any way that it could be better than that.

:::

"Spring break is just a week." Said Anna, rolling her eyes as Jo tried to tempt her back into the double bed they had fashioned by smashing their two twins together. Jo was bare breasted and trying her hardest to thwart Anna's attempts to pack. "I was supposed to do this last night. When that didn't exactly pan out," Anna cast Jo a playfully accusing glance. Jo returned it with a shamelessly guilty smile, "I was going to do it this morning, then," Anna gestured to the naked Jo in their bed, "If I don't pack now, I'll miss my flight."

"Then you'll have to stay here, all week, with me. Aww. That's a shame."

"You're going home too!"

"I'd rather make love to you."

"You miss your mother. I know that you do."

Jo rolled her eyes but didn't press the argument.

When she went home, Jo could only think about Anna. Could only talk about Anna. That was why, when her mother asked if she was thinking about classes for the fall, Jo shrugged instead of digging up their age-old argument. She wasn't thinking about the scared looks of her classmates or the whispers as she passed them in the halls.

Jo was thinking about an apartment with Anna since sophomores never lived on campus. Cooking with Anna. Making love to Anna on a table, or a couch, out in the open, in someplace that could truly be their own.

Jo didn't even hesitate as she threw open the door to her and Anna's dorm room on the first day back to classes. She was opening her mouth to greet her when she was met with chain-smoking boyfriend-yelling girl.

"Hey, remember me? I'm Amanda."

"Where's Anna?"

Amanda shrugged.

"I'm your new roommate, again. Anyway. All of her stuff is still here, so…"

But Amanda was left talking to herself as Jo ran down the hallway to the RA's room. She pounded on the door, causing all the other girls in the hall to look out at her. Just psycho-Jo, being a psycho again.

The RA opened the door and Jo pushed herself in without invitation.

"There's some girl in Anna and my's room. She thinks it's her room. Kick her out."

"Oh, I was hoping someone would call you…" said the RA, nervously wringing her hands. "Sit down, Joanna."

"No."

"Alright, then." Said the RA, "Anna's parents thought that maybe the school was just too much pressure for her. She… wasn't well. Mentally. Apparently she stopped taking her medicine a little while ago."

"You mean…"

"Her parents have sent her to a facility that can better cater to Anna's psychiatric needs."

"They locked her up?" asked Jo, "They locked her up and they stuffed her full of pills? There wasn't anything wrong with her!"

"Apparently, she had been having delusions. Her parents and her doctors know what's best for her, Joanna. You don't get a say."

"What facility? Where did they send her?"

"I really can't give out that kind of information…"

"Well, what is her parent's number? I can call them. I can explain. She isn't wrong. She's right. Everything about her is right."

"I know you two were close…"

Jo gave a malevolent laugh. "Close" didn't even begin to describe only having one other person in the world. "Close" didn't even comprehend how Jo felt when Anna's hair tickled her face in the morning.

"I'm going." Said Jo abruptly.

The RA seemed relieved to see Jo walk out of her room. But Jo didn't return to her own dorm room. She grabbed her bags, still packed and in the hall and was on a bus to anywhere before lunch.

:::

Anna watched Jo work in her mother's bar serenely. Anna could see her. Jo couldn't see Anna. In a way, it was a comfort. In a way, it was also like twisting a knife in her heart.

And Anna had had enough of that, as of late, thank you very much.

Her return to heaven had been, unpleasant, to use the world's least adequate word.

She'd been saved by the Dean Winchester, vessel of Michael the Archangel. She'd made love to him in the back of his Impala. It had been, poetic, really. The righteous man and the graceless angel, wrapped in each other's embrace.

Though, perhaps not quite so poetic as two freaks in a dorm room; the girl with the knife collection and the girl who heard voices.

Then, of course, the righteous man had sold her out. She'd gotten away because, despite the wilting wallflower of a vessel she possessed, she packed quite a wallop. Enough to take out a half-hearted Castiel and a slow Uriel.

Then, she trusted Castiel. Castiel, a man so blinded by love for a human that he doubted everything he had been taught. Anna had thought she could relate to that. Then, Castiel had handed her over to two, much stronger, angels who wanted to make an example of her.

But they found that their blades and spears and numerous creative torture devices did nothing to her. Her family was disgusted by her, humanity never understood her. Once again, or perhaps as she always had been, Anna was very much an outcast.

"What do you want, Zachariah?" asked Anna as the angel appeared next to her as she watched Jo stack clean glasses behind the bar.

"Ahhh, your little pet." Said Zachariah, following Anna's eyes looking Jo over. "Cute little thing, isn't she. So spunky."

"What do you want, Zachariah?" Anna asked again, almost bored.

"We have a job for you. You need to kill Sam Winchester. It will be easier when he is an infant, or perhaps, even easier when he is a fetus."

"Really? You aren't even going to sugar coat it? Why, after everything, would I help you now?"

"You aren't doing it for what we will do. You're doing it for what we won't do."

"Going to throw me back to the dogs? Torture me again? That worked so well the first few times."

"What do you think makes her so special?" asked Zachariah lightly, changing the subject "There are smarter humans. Stronger humans. Faster humans. Why would you love her over everyone else?"

"It isn't as simple as that," said Anna.

"She's got pizzazz, though. I can respect that, truly, I can."

"Leave her alone, Zachariah."

"She's so young, though. Kids at this age. They think they're invincible." Said Zachariah, conversationally, " How long before you think she goes to the doctor to get that tumor checked?"

"No," Anna whispered, but she knew it was too late. "No, don't hurt her."

"What a shame that it is in such a delicate place. Brain tumors, you know? This one seems to be completely inoperable. That's… that's just bad luck. Her organs will fail in a few months. Six, maybe? If she's lucky? And, lets be honest, this girl isn't very lucky, is she?"

"Fine." Murmured a defeated Anna, "I'll do it. Whatever you want. Don't hurt her."

"Splendid."

:::

Jo's heaven was a whirlwind of happy memories.

Her fifth birthday when her father rented her a petting zoo. She'd fallen head over heels in love with an old, fat brown pony and her dad had a twenty minute conversation with her mother over the possibility of keeping it. Ellen's argument was that a pony cost money, and time and resources that they just plumb didn't have. William Anthony Harvelle's argument had been how big Jo's brown eyes got when she laid them on Mr. Hershey, the miniature horse. Logic won out, but Jo always remembered the afternoon that she almost got a pony, scratching its soft mane while her parents, together for one precious and yet infinite moment, lovably bickered behind her. It was the only memory she really had of her father. It was the last memory she really had of ever feeling normal.

Then there was her fist hunt. It was a salt and burn and would have made a more experienced hunter yawn, but Jo did it all by herself. Jo salted and burned that bastard, even when everyone told her she couldn't hunt alone. She was more than that little girl her mother kept tucked behind a bar. She was stronger than the freak that kids feared in high school. She was Jo-effing-Harvelle and she had made a difference.

Then, there was a dorm room, with a red headed angel laid out before her, with long milky limbs just begging to be touched and looking up at Jo. And more than that flawless body, those flawless breasts, that flawless skin, it was the look in Anna's eyes that made Jo's breath catch in her throat. And it was the only time that anyone had ever seen her. Anyone had ever truly seen her as anything besides the outcast, the freak, the greenhorn hunter, the satan worshiping goth-head. 

Somewhere between the labels, was someone that even Jo Harvelle had yet to find, but Anna Milton saw it, easy as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

And she hadn't belonged in that college. She hadn't belonged in that dorm. But in that bed, with that woman, Jo was exactly where she needed to be.


End file.
